PhD Computer Science Program

1. Admission Criteria
1.1. MS/M.Phil. Computer Science or Equivalent degree from HEC recognized University/Institute with
minimum CGPA 3.0 (out of 4.0 in the Semester System) or First Division (in the Annual System)..
1.2. Maximum two seconds division in the entire academic career but not in the terminal degree. In case
of second division, total marks should not be less than 50%.
1.3. A subject test followed by interview will be conducted by the University and qualifying score will be at
least 60%.
1.4. No Objection Certificate from the employer routed through proper channel in case of candidates
employed in government or semi-government organizations.
1.5. The applicant must not be already registered as a student in any other academic programme in
Pakistan or abroad.
2. Admission Procedure
2.1. PhD programme shall be advertised in the beginning of each academic year.
2.2. An applicant shall apply on a prescribed admission form within the due date given in the
advertisement for admission.
2.3. The completed application form, along with required documents, shall be submitted in the admissions
office.
2.4. The applicants shall be evaluated by the ASRB according to the following criterion
M.Sc./MS/Equivalent (50 % contribution)
BSCS/BE/Equivalent (30% contribution)
Interview (10 % contribution)
Publication(s)/relevant experience (10% contribution)
2.5. The selected candidates will be given an acceptance letter by the Program Coordinator. The student(s)
shall pay their dues within the stipulated time, failing which their admission shall be liable to be
cancelled.

Page 2 of 15
3. Course Work
3.1 Semester Schedule
Registration and orientation 1 day
Classes 8 weeks
Mid-Semester Examination 1 week
Classes 8 weeks
Final Examination 1 week
3.2 Medium of Instructions
The medium of instructions as well as of examinations shall be English.
The students should have English reading, writing and speaking skill.
3.3 Course Work Load
Course work of 18 credit hours preferably in the first year is required to be completed and
followed by a comprehensive examination for granting candidacy as PhD researcher. There will be
maximum two years for the completion of the course work
The course work shall be divided into two parts. During 1st semester, the candidate shall take three
core courses (9 credit hours). In the 2nd semester, the student shall choose three courses (9 credit
hours) from the list of elective courses.
The candidate shall choose the elective courses with the consent of his/her PhD supervisor and
PhD coordinator.
One credit hour stands for one hour class contact per week per semester. For practical/lab work, 3
contact hours shall be considered equivalent to one credit hour.
3.4 Attendance Requirement
In order to be eligible to sit in the end semester exam, a student must have attended minimum 75%
of the lectures.
3.5 Residency Requirement
Ph.D. programme comprises full-time coursework and research work.
3.6 Examination, Grading and Evaluation of Course Work
There shall be two examinations for each course (mid-exam and final-exam) along with
quizzes/assignments/seminars, etc.
The break-up of the marks in each course will be as follows: mid-exam = 30%, home
assignments/quizzes/seminars, etc. = 30%, final-exam = 40%.
Page 3 of 15
The results of a course shall be submitted within one week of the examination.
The results shall be notified by the Controller of Examinations (COE) within two weeks of the
examination.
The student must obtain a minimum grade point 2.50/4.00 in each subject throughout the course
work and maintain a minimum CGPA of 2.50/4.00.
If a student obtained less than 2.50/4.00 grade point, (s)he may be allowed to repeat a course(s) for
one time only.
If a student still fails to obtain a grade point of 2.50, (s)he will be removed from the rolls of the
university.
3.7 Grading System
*Any fraction of marks in a course shall be up to 2 digits.
3.8 Comprehensive Examination
There will be a comprehensive examination within 12 weeks of the successful completion of the
course work (18 CH).
It shall comprise of Written and Oral Exam.
Student shall choose 3 courses from the courses (s)he has taken during course work. Minimum 1
course shall be chosen from core courses and minimum 1 course shall be chosen from the elective
courses.
Examination committee will consist of Dean (FOS), Coordinator PhD Program and at least two
teachers (whose subjects have been chosen).
Written exam shall be of two hours containing three equal parts (one from each chosen subject).
At least 70% marks are required to pass comprehensive examination.
Grade Grade Point Percentage Description
A 4.00 85 & above Excellent
B+ 3.50 80-84.99 Very Good
B 3.00 75-79.99 Good
C+ 2.50 70-74.99 Above Average
C 2.00 65-69.99 Average
D+ 1.50 60-64.99 Below Average
D 1.00 50-59.99 Pass
F 0.00 Below 50 Fail
I - - Incomplete
W A course can be withdrawn within first 4 weeks of a semester
Course
withdrawn
Page 4 of 15
To pass the comprehensive exam, maximum two attempts can be made by the students. If a
student does not qualify the comprehensive in the second attempt, he/she will be dropped out from
the PhD programme.
The course work and comprehensive exam must be completed within initial two years of the
programme, failing which will lead to the cancelation of admission.
4. Research Work
4.1 Synopsis
After successfully passing the comprehensive exam, a student shall prepare a synopsis/research
proposal for PhD research work within maximum of the next three semesters according to the
guidelines for synopsis write up prepared by the university.
Before beginning practical research work, the student must successfully defend his/her synopsis
through presentation before the ASRB.
In case of changes in the scope of the research during research work, approval shall be sought on
the prescribed form.
4.2 Research
a) There will be 30 Credit Hrs research work.
b) Minimum one research paper should be published or accepted for publications in HEC approved
journals, or a Patent should be filed before submission of thesis/dissertation for defense.
4.3 Progress Report
a) It shall be mandatory for the researcher to submit detailed progress reports by the end of each semester
through his/her supervisor to the Coordinator PhD Program.
4.4 Thesis Writing
a) The PhD thesis must be written in English according to the given format.
b) Plagiarism report (using HEC recommended software) should be provided with the final manuscript.
4.5 Appointment of Examiners
a) Coordinator PhD Program in consultation with the Supervisory committee will propose a panel of , 3
local and 3 foreign examiners from technologically advanced countries, to the Controller of
Examination.
b) The Controller of Examination will forward the proposal to Rector who shall appoint 3 examiners
following the HEC guidelines.

Page 5 of 15
4.6 Thesis Evaluation
a) The Controller of Examinations (COE) shall get the thesis evaluated within maximum of 4 months after
the date of submission to his office.
b) If any of the examiners suggests minor modifications/revision, this should be incorporated by the
students within 3 months and certified by the Supervisor.
c) No thesis defense will be held unless all the examiners recommend the thesis for defence.
d) If any of the examiners finds that the thesis is wholly inadequate or requires major modifications, the
candidate will be asked for additional research work for maximum one year.
e) The same examiner, who suggests modification of the thesis, shall evaluate the Revised Version of the
thesis.
4.7 Final Thesis Defense
a) The final defense may be open to the public.
b) The scholar shall be required to defend his/her work in front of the thesis defense committee comprising
of Supervisor(s) and three examiners (two external and one internal) appointed by the Rector.
c) If a scholar fails to satisfy the examiners in the final defense, they may require the scholar to defend the
thesis for the second time within a period of 6 months.
d) In case of successful defense, the executive committee, on the recommendations of the thesis defense
committee, will approve the reports of the examiners for the thesis and oral examination and award of
the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSPHY in the relevant subject to the candidate.
5. Ph.D. Duration
a) The minimum period for completion of PhD programme shall be 4 years (one year for 18 credit hours
course work; 3 years research). The period shall be counted from the commencement of first semester.
b) The maximum permissible period for submission of PhD thesis will be 6 years. After 6 years, the scholar
shall cease to be the student of the university and shall not be eligible for readmission.
c) A student will have to provide justification and get approval from rector if (s)he wants to enrol in the
5th/6th year of PhD.
6. Cancellation of Ph.D. Registration
a) Ph.D. Registration shall be cancelled by the Controller of Examinations on the recommendation of
DEAN (FOS) followed by the approval of the Rector, if the scholar:
i. Earns two consecutive adverse feedbacks from the Program Coordinator on his progress report.
ii. Does not complete the course work with the required CGPA or within the given time frame.
iii. Does not qualify the comprehensive exam even in the second attempt.
Page 6 of 15
iv. Does not meet 75% attendance criteria during course work.
v. Is guilty of misconduct.
b) The aggrieved scholar may file an appeal against cancellation of PhD registration to the Academic
Council within a period of 30 days. Academic Council will give him/her an opportunity to be heard in
person. However, the decision of the Academic Council will be final and will not be questioned in any
court of law.
Page 7 of 15
< 2.50
2.00
6. Cancellation of Ph.D. Registration

7. Flowchart for Award of Ph.D. Degree



































MS/M Phil/Equivalent (18 years education)
CGPA 3.00
Course work of 18 credit hours (max. 2years)
CGPA?
Comprehensive Exam
2.50
Repeat one
course
< 2.00
Dismissal
CGPA?
Dismissal
< 2.50
Marks?
2.50
< 2.50
Marks?
Dismissal
<2.50
2
nd
attempt
Synopsis / Research Proposal
Research Work (3-4 years)
Publication or Acceptance of 1 research paper
in HEC recognized journals
Thesis Evaluation
Public Defense and Oral examination
Award of PhD Degree
Page 8 of 15

6. PhD (Computer Science) Courses
(This list is not exhaustive and new courses can be added to this category at any time depending upon
availability of the instructor)
Sr# Code Course Title
1 CSC-8001 Design for Usability
2 CSC-8002 Modeling of Web Information Systems
3 CSC-8003 Data Warehousing
4 CSC-8004 Peer-To-Peer Systems
5 CSC-8005 Machine Learning
6 CSC-8006 Pattern Recognition
7 CSC-8007 Social Network Analysis
8 CSC-8008 Computational Modeling
9 CSC-8009 Multimedia Retrieval Techniques
10 CSC-8010 Metadata for Information Resources
11 CSC-8011 Information Privacy and Access Control
12 CSC-8012 Multimedia Communications
13 CSC-8013 Ubiquitous Information Interaction
14 CSC-8014 Human Information Interaction
15 CSC-8015 Information Architecture
16 CSC-8016 Collaborative Data Mining
17 CSC-8017 Enterprise Intelligence
18 CSC-8018 Communication Networks
19 CSC-8019 Software Evolution and Reengineering
20 CSC-8020 Program Comprehension and Reverse Engineering
21 CSC-8021 Information Visualization and Presentation
22 CSC-8022 Accessibility of Interactive Systems
23 CSC-8023 Metadata Model Management
24 CSC-8024 Advances in Next Generation Networks
25 CSC-8025 P2P-based Information retrieval
26 CSC-8026 Advanced Software Architecture
27 CSC-8027 Software Refactoring
28 CSC-8028 Advanced topics in Machine Learning
29 CSC-8029 Digital Preservation
30 CSC-8030 Mining Massive Datasets
31 CSC-8031 Ontology Engineering
32 CSC-8032 Online Social Networking Systems: Technological Perspective
33 CSC-8033 Social Media Content Analysis
34 CSC-8034 Software Repositories Mining
35 CSC-8035 Visual analytics
36 CSC-8036 Research Seminar
37 CSC-9001 Research Thesis

Page 9 of 15
Courses Details
CSC-8001 Design for Usability
Principles for designing the product; Development process for user interaction; Usability
specifications; Design representation techniques; Prototyping; Formative user-based evaluation;
Usability methods; User interaction development process.
CSC-8002 Modeling of Web Information Systems
Web modeling concepts; Modeling the Web applications for requirements engineering; Content
modelling; Navigation modeling (Hypertext, Access structure); Modeling the presentation for the end
user; Model driven development and model driven architecture; Evolution of the Web, Web 1.0 (visual
Web), Web 2.0 (Social Web), and Semantic Web (the Web of metadata); Hypertext patterns;
Persistence of HT patterns; O&M of Web applications.
CSC-8003 Data Warehousing
Overview of the course and a brief history; Data Warehouse Architecture; Extract Transform Load;
Data Cleansing Algorithms; Hot and Cold Data; Data Warehouse support for OLAP and Data Mining;
Active Data warehousing; Semantic Data warehousing; Oracle solution
Teradata solution; Case Studies.
CSC-8004 Peer-To-Peer Systems
Overview of P2P Systems and brief history; Taxonomy of P2P Networks/Systems and Analysis of
popular P2P Systems; Analysis of unstructured P2P Systems; Analysis of structured P2P Systems;
Search Efficiency; P2P-based content delivery; Security and Reliability; Replication in peer-to-peer
systems; Anonymity in peer-to-peer systems; Social, Legal and Privacy aspects of P2P Systems.
CSC-8005 Machine Learning
Introduction: Overview of machine learning, Machine learning applications and examples, inductive
learning, inductive bias; Decision tree learning: Representation, algorithm, hypothesis space, rule
extraction, pruning; Neural networks: Representation, perceptrons, multilayer networks,
backpropagation algorithm, Training procedures; Bayesian learning: Bayes theorem, maximum
likelihood hypothesis, Bayes classifiers, Baysian belief networks; Instance-based learning: K-nearest
neighbors, lazy and eager learning; Evaluating Hypothesis: Hypothesis accuracy, sampling theory,
hypothesis testing; Computational learning theory: Probably learning an approximately correct
hypothesis, sample complexity for finite and infinite hypothesis, VC dimension; Unsupervised
learning: Clustering, types, steps
CSC-8006 Pattern Recognition
Introduction: Overview of pattern recognition, review of matrix algebra, probability distributions and
probability; Bayesian Decision Theory: Classifiers, discriminant functions and decision surfaces,
Page 10 of 15
normal density and discriminant functions for normal density, error bounds for normal densities;
Bayesian Parameter Estimation: Univariate and Multivariate cases for the Gaussian distribution, bias,
class-conditional densities; Maximum Likelihood Estimation: The general principle, Unknown
parameter cases for Gaussian distribution; Problems of dimensionality: Accuracy and training sample
size, computational complexity, overfitting; Component Analysis: Principle Component Analysis,
Fisher Linear discriminant; Non-Parametric Techniques: Parzen windows, K-Nearest neighbour rule
and estimation.
CSC-8007 Social Network Analysis
Introduction to social networks; random network models; identifying connected components; giant
component; average shortest path; diameter; preferential attachment; network centrality; betweenness;
closeness; clustering; community structure; modularity; overlapping communities; small world
network models; contagion; opinion formation; applications of social network analysis; social media
networks.
CSC-8008 Computational Modeling
Introduction to Computational Modeling, History, Motivation and Prospects; Modeling process, input
modeling, Random Numbers and Distributions, Monte Carlo Methods; Discrete Event Modeling ,
Introduction to Markov Process, Queuing Theory; Continues Time Modeling, System Dynamic
Modeling; Game Theoretic Modeling, Prisoners Dilemma, Nash Equation; Verification and
Validation of Models; Verification and Validation Techniques; Data Driven Modeling ;Concept
Learning and Decision, Classification and Clustering; Agent Based Modeling, Belief, Desire and
Intension (BDI) , Multi-Agent System; Social Simulation , Social Dynamics, Complex Systems,
Emergence.
CSC-8009 Multimedia Retrieval Techniques
Multimedia content and motivations for multimedia retrieval; Issues of multimedia Retrieval.
Multimedia retrieval models; Content-based image retrieval; Content-based video retrieval; Content-
based audio retrieval: audio representations, audio feature extraction; Query modalities and similarity
measures; Analysis of existing multimedia retrieval systems, retrieval evaluation criteria, relevance
feedback; current trends in Multimedia Retrieval.
CSC-8010 Metadata for Information Resources
Overview of the course and Metadata; History of schemes and metadata communities; Functions and
Types of metadata; Metadata Structure and Characteristics: Semantics, syntax, and structure; Metadata
creation process models; Interoperability; Metadata Integration and Architecture: Warwick
Framework; Resource Description Framework; Open Archives Initiative; Encoding Standards
(Markup Languages): Introduction and history of markup; Metadata use of markup languages;
Document Type Definitions (DTD); Structural metadata Data Control Standards: Resource Identifiers;
Data Registries; Controlled vocabularies; Name authority control (ISAAR and FRANAR); A-Core;
Encoded Archival Description (EAD), Text Encoding Initiative (TEI); Metadata Evaluation: User
needs; Quality control issues; Evaluation methods; Educational Metadata: Instructional Management
Page 11 of 15
Systems (IMS); Learning Object Metadata (LOM); Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM);
Government Information Locator Service (GILS); Visual Resources Metadata: Categories for the
Description of Works of Art (CDWA); Visual Resources Association (VRA) Core; Computer
Interchange of Museum Information (CIMI)
CSC-8011 Information Privacy and Access Control
Privacy, Privacy policies; Privacy enforcement; Adaptive privacy management; Access control
mechanisms; Different access control models such as Mandatory, Discretionary, Role-Based and
Activity-Based; Access control matrix model; Harrison-Russo-Ullman model and undecidability of
security; Confidentiality models such as Bell-LaPadula; Integrity models such as Biba and Clark-
Wilson; Conflict of interest models such as the Chinese Wall
CSC-8012 Multimedia Communications
Introduction and Recent history of multimedia technologies; Digital Image, Video and Audio
Compression in Multimedia Communications; Networking Technology for Multimedia; Multimedia
and the Internet; IETF Standard Protocols for Multimedia Transport; Multimedia Synchronization;
Quality of Service (QoS) and Resource Management for Multimedia; Research Challenges in Real-
time Multimedia transport; Multimedia conferencing and collaboration tools; Multimedia Security.
CSC-8013 Ubiquitous Information Interaction
Information Interaction; Seminal ideas of ubiquitous computing; Tangibility and Embodiment; Social
computing; Privacy; Critical and cultural perspectives;Mobility and Spatiality; Mobile Technology in
the Messy Now; Infrastructure;Seams, seamlessness, seamfulness; Evaluating Interaction of Ubicomp
systems
CSC-8014 Human Information Interaction
Overview of the course and a brief history; Types and structures of information resources; Types and
structures of vocabularies; Information retrieval & Interaction in information retrieval
Search engines, Digital libraries; Search techniques and effectiveness; Advanced searching
Web search and the invisible web; Information seeking behaviour; User modelling; Mediation between
search intermediaries and users; Evaluation of search sources and results; Result Presentation to users;
Keeping up: sources for life-time learning
CSC-8015 Information Architecture
Introduction and Overview of the course. Process of Web development; Information behaviour & the
web. Content design and organization systems; Copyright issues. Labeling systems; Writing for the
Web. Navigation design; Search systems. Page design; Multimedia. Web usability evaluation &
testing. Accessibility for users with disabilities. Global audiences; Web standards & policies. Weblogs,
Intranets, Websites for mobile devices; Web design software; Web Content Management Systems.
Metadata; Search engines
Page 12 of 15
CSC-8016 Collaborative Data Mining
Overview of the course and a brief history; Overview of Distributed Database systems; Importance
and usage of collaboration; Web Data Resources; A brief introduction to overlay networks; Remote
Collaboration; Collaborative Data Mining Guidelines; Parallel Data Mining; Grid-based Data Mining;
Collaborative mining over social networks; Collaborative mining in P2P Networks; Collaborative data
mining case studies.
CSC-8017 Enterprise Intelligence
Overview of the course and a brief history; Introduction to Real-time Business Intelligence; Enterprise
level Online Analytical Processing (OLAP); Open Source OLAP tools; Introduction to Online
Analytical Mining (OLAM); OLAM Tool Design for relational data source; OLAM Tool Design for
mining data streams; Need for OLAM Query Language; Data Mashups for decision support; Data
Mashup case studies; Oracle Data Mining.
CSC-8018 Communication Networks
Overview of the course & research activities in computer networks; Communication Networks &
Services; Overview of network simulations; Layered architecture; Congestion Control and Traffic
Management; Wireless, Mobility and Cross layer concepts; Switching & Routing; Quality of Service (
QoS); Multicast; Peer-to-Peer (P2P) and Overlay Networks; Content Distribution in P2P Networks;
Multimedia Information & Networking; Network Measurement.
CSC-8019 Software Evolution and Reengineering
Introduction: Challenges of evolution, Legacy systems; Evolution Process: Laws of software
evolution, Evolution models, Testing in the context of evolution, Metrics for evolution; Evolution
Activities: Concepts of, and techniques for activities e.g. Reverse engineering, Re-factoring, Program
Transformation, Visualization; Re-engineering techniques: Code restructuring, Source code analysis,
Architecture Recovery; Topics in reengineering research
CSC-8020 Program Comprehension and Reverse Engineering
Static Analysis: Parsing, lexical analysis, issues in parsing languages; Program analysis: Control flow
analysis, Data flow analysis, flow graphs, program dependence graphs, call graphs; Dynamic analysis:
Profiling, dynamic testing; Reverse engineering: Design recovery and re-documentation, challenges in
reverse engineering, reverse engineering approaches; Reverse engineering techniques: Techniques for
reverse engineering at the program level, Techniques for reverse engineering at the architectural level
Reverse Engineering tools
CSC-8021 Information Visualization and Presentation
Overview of the course and Information Visualization; Types of Graphs and Visualizations
Data Types and Graph Types; Design Choices in Building Basic Graphs; Multidimensional Graphing;
Graphing and Basic Statistics; Perceptual Properties; How to Critique Visual Designs
Page 13 of 15
Interactive Visualization; Multidimensional Interactive Visualization; Animation; Visualization
Networks; Visualization for Search Interfaces and related Fields; Visualization for Text Analysis; 3D
in Visualization; Research trends in Information Visualization
CSC-8022 Accessibility of Interactive Systems
Vision of Web Accessibility (Web Accessibility Initiative); Accessibility guidelines; Different
accessibility components (content developers, authoring tools, evaluation tools, contents, user agents,
assistive technologies, user's characteristics); WCAG, ATAG, UAAG, EARL; Accessibility in various
projects (Java Accessibility, Microsoft Enable, .); User's disabilities, human disease ontology; User
interface characteristics; Modelling of user's disabilities, UI characteristics in Web Technologies;
WAI-ARIA, the Accessible Rich Internet Applications.
CSC-8023 Metadata Model Management
Overview of the course and a brief history; Autonomous Data Sources; Introduction to MetaData
Models; Structured and Semi-structured data models; Data exchange and data integration applications;
Requirements for transforming metadata model; Guidelines for transforming metadata model;
MetaData Model matching; MetaData driven data exchange; MetaData driven data integration;
Evolving schemas and their effect on corresponding evolution of mappings.
CSC-8024 Advances in Next Generation Networks
Next Generation Internet/Networks: "Convergence to IP"; Network Technologies and Architectures;
Quality of Service; Multimedia protocols; Policy routing; Future Internet; Network traffic
optimization; Next Generation Internet and broadband deployment; Advances in wireless mobile
networks; Advances in sensor networks; Management of Next Generation Networks
CSC-8025 P2P-based Information retrieval
Overview of the Information Retrieval Systems; Multimedia & its characteristics; P2P Systems & its
characteristics; Content searching/locating in P2P systems; Emerging coding standards for
information; Architecture of P2P-based information retrieval; Privacy & security issues in P2P-based
information retrieval; Current research trends in P2P-based information retrieval.
CSC-8026 Advanced Software Architecture
Re-use in architectures: Software product lines, evaluation and validation of product lines, product line
testing, re-use in product lines; Service oriented architectures (SOAs): SOA concepts, risks and
challenges, quality attributes and SOAs, evaluating and testing SOAs; Architectural evaluation:
Methods for architectural analysis, Comparison of methods; Architectural evolution and
reconstruction: Models of software evolution, analysis and metrics for evolution, Techniques and tools
for architecture reconstruction; Architectures in dynamic environments: Modeling and analyzing
dynamic software architectures; Self healing architectures: The need for self-healing, approaches for
self healing
Page 14 of 15
CSC-8027 Software Refactoring
Refactoring principles: Reasons for refactoring, what to refactor, Challenges in refactoring ;
Refactoring categories: Refactoring in the small and large; Refactoring techniques: Recognizing bad
smells in code, refactoring for organizing code, higher abstraction, improvement and others;
Refactoring of UML models
Tool support for refactoring: Strengths and limitations
CSC-8028 Advanced topics in Machine Learning
Introduction: Overview of machine learning, Machine learning applications and examples;
Reinforcement learning: Elements of reinforcement learning, Model based learning, Temporal
difference learning, Generalization; Genetic Algorithms: Genetic operators, fitness function,
Hypothesis space search, Genetic programming; Support Vector Machines: Optimal separating
hyperplane, softmargin hyperplane, kernel functions, SVMs for regression; Combining learners:
Voting, Bagging, Boosting; Assessing and Comparing Classification Algorithms: Cross-validation and
resampling, Measuring error, Assessing performance, Comparing multiple classification algorithms.
CSC-8029 Digital Preservation
Introduction to Digital Preservation. Digital objects, and their preservation; Key issues such as
obsolescence of storage media, software and data formats, hardware, and Digital Curation in Digital
Libraries; their solution; Benefits of digital preservation such as Legal, Accountability & protection
from litigation, Protecting the long term view, Protecting investment, Reuse; Reference Models for
digital preservations; Role of Metadata and Registries; Preservation Methods, approaches, and their
evaluation; Selection and appraisal methodologies; Digital Curation in Digital Libraries; Audit and
Certification of Preservation Processes and Repositories.
CSC-8030 Mining Massive Datasets
Introduction to map-reduce; large scale file systems, hadoop distributed file system (HDFS); similarity
search; minhashing; locality sensitive hashing; fast data-stream processing; PageRank; link-spam
detection; frequent itemset mining; clustering very large and high-dimensional datasets;
dimensionality reduction: PCA, SVD; CUR decomposition.
CSC-8031 Ontology Engineering
Ontology building methodologies; Ontology design patterns; Different ontology layers such as upper,
domain and task ontologies; Ontology languages; Knowledge discovery for ontology construction;
Knowledge Interchange Format (KIF); Role of annotations and Web in ontology development;
Ontology reuse methodologies; Ontology engineering cost models; Ontology maintenance
methodologies; Ontology mediation, merging, alignment, integration; Ontology evolution (data driven
and usage driven approaches).
CSC-8032 Online Social Networking Systems: Technological Perspective
Page 15 of 15
Introduction and history of Online Social Networks; Analysis & Design of Online Social Networks;
Characteristics of Online Communities; Web 2.0; Application development of Online Social
Networks; Clustering & Community Detection; Applications of Online Social Networks; Privacy and
other Online Social Issues; Social impact of the social web.
CSC-8033 Social Media Content Analysis
Overview of social media; folksonomies; formal structure of folksonomies; crawling data using APIs;
metadata associated with social media; context in social media; contents in social media: tags, photos,
videos, status updates, bookmarks; analyzing tagging data; analyzing contents in social media: low-
level image features (MPEG7), textual contents, micro blogs; concept identification; recommendation
systems; event detection and prediction.
CSC-8034 Software Repositories Mining
Development models: Team formation and collaboration, task assignment in software projects,
determining expertise; Prediction: Quality and defect prediction; Evolution models of software:
Predicting changes and size, impact analysis; Visualization: Modeling aspects of software repositories;
Meta-models and exchange format for mining tools; Tools for software repository mining
CSC-8035 Visual analytics
Introduction and overview of the course. Analytical Reasoning and Critical Thinking. Mental and
Visualization Models. Data: Representations, Transformations, and Statistics. Visual Representations.
Interaction. Communication: Production, Presentation, Dissemination. Sense Making. Collaborative
Visual Analytics. Evaluation of VAST systems.
CSC-8036 Research Seminar
This course offers a substantial introduction relevant to doctoral work in student's research area. The
course provides directed and supervised investigation of selected topics. Each week Research papers
related to the topic will be discussed, and presented in a seminar format. This course progresses as a
series of seminars, each presenting a different paper(s). It prepares students to review studies of other
researchers in the field, and allows them to become more knowledgeable about methods appropriate to
their dissertation research.